Master Index of Archived Threads


MTV 30

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr Aug 01 2011 11:23 AM

Am watching "You Better Run" with an apparently-Benatar-worshipping YoungerPooper, during a rebroadcast of the original launch. This, after a vintage "Remote Control" celebrity edition featuring Julie Brown (non-Downtown variety), "Weird Al," and LL Cool J. Highly, highly entertaining nostalgia dip, this is.

themetfairy Aug 01 2011 11:33 AM Re: MTV 30

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Julie Brown (non-Downtown variety) The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun seemed a lot more amusing back in the day than it does now....

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr Aug 01 2011 11:37 AM Re: MTV 30

Even then, it seemed a little off, comedic-pitch-wise. But, yeah, definitely. Original ads included, btw-- a Trapper Keeper precursor called "The Stuff," Mountain Dew, and a Superman II spot! [Unfortunately, original videos by Ph.D and Cliff Richard also included.]

seawolf17 Aug 01 2011 12:09 PM Re: MTV 30

Saw that "Remote Control" last night; it inspired my FB post from this morning. What a great show.

metsguyinmichigan Aug 01 2011 01:00 PM Re: MTV 30

MTV used to be so much fun. I loved watching those videos.

Frayed Knot Aug 01 2011 01:17 PM Re: MTV 30

metsguyinmichigan wrote: MTV used to be so much fun. I loved watching those videos. I never, ever saw the appeal.

Gwreck Aug 01 2011 03:58 PM Re: MTV 30

You didn't use it to find out about new artists? It wasn't your connection to music that you couldn't afford to buy copies or yourself? It wasn't an alternative to the radio? You didn't use it as a way -- in a pre-internet world -- to SEE the artists whose music you listened to? I'm not saying it wasn't flawed but there was a lot of value there in my opinion.

seawolf17 Aug 01 2011 05:55 PM Re: MTV 30

A TON of value. Feels like my entire life revolved around MTV from around 1988ish until 1993ish, when I went to college. I have a bunch of videotapes in the basement somewhere of old videos that I taped off the TV.

Edgy DC Aug 01 2011 06:02 PM Re: MTV 30

Frayed Knot was a VH-1 fan.

Frayed Knot Aug 01 2011 07:04 PM Re: MTV 30

You didn't use it to find out about new artists? -- Not often. MTV in the early days was, by their own admission, just copying whatever AOR was playing. They did tend to diversity more as the years went on but they were still limited (much moreso than radio) to those songs which had videos and the few artists/bands they did tend to "break" were more the style-over-substance types. It wasn't your connection to music that you couldn't afford to buy copies or yourself? -- Mostly I remember it as showing music I wouldn't want to buy for myself. It wasn't an alternative to the radio? -- Not a particularly good one, especially since it, in turn, made radio worse as the paucity of material effectively began a reversal of the trend from singles to albums. You didn't use it as a way -- in a pre-internet world -- to SEE the artists whose music you listened to? -- There was some novelty in that, but after the first time or two it certainly wasn't anything worth camping out for hours in front of the box. And mostly I just remember never buying into the whole "marriage of audio and video" synergy that was their early selling point. The contrived videos were mostly mindless shite, and the few actual live performances were always lip-synched because the entire purpose of producing the videos were to sell the artists' single. I was generally bored after about ten minutes. "Frayed Knot was a VH-1 fan" Five minutes.

MFS62 Aug 01 2011 10:23 PM Re: MTV 30

Frayed Knot wrote: They did tend to diversity more as the years went on but they were still limited (much moreso than radio) to those songs which had videos and the few artists/bands they did tend to "break" were more the style-over-substance types. And, it seemed like most of those early videos were from English artists. My cable channel didn't even carry VH-1 in those days. Later

TransMonk Aug 02 2011 06:35 AM Re: MTV 30

I flipped to MTV 30 last night...and it was a commercial break. That's exactly how I remember MTV.

metirish Aug 02 2011 06:41 AM Re: MTV 30

TransMonk wrote: I flipped to MTV 30 last night...and it was a commercial break. That's exactly how I remember MTV. excellent haven't seen this as I was away, I bet it's rerun and rerun and rerun..............

Edgy DC Aug 02 2011 07:05 AM Re: MTV 30

The odd (and in retrospect, oh, so predictable) is that they launched the channel with an airing (or cabling) of the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star." In so doing, they turned a lament over what they were doing into a celebration of it. And naturally, video only intensified the disadvantage the old and the unattractive would have in the music market. It's a development particularly worth looking at now that the hologram is killing the video star, and folks are passionate fans of "artists" who don't even exist except on hard drives.

metirish Aug 02 2011 07:07 AM Re: MTV 30

The Irish Times http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/fea ... 83382.html

Frayed Knot Aug 02 2011 07:09 AM Re: MTV 30

btw, I'm pretty sure there's an 'MTV at 25' thread floating around the archives of this site somewhere. I'm also pretty sure I didn't remember it all that fondly then either.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Aug 02 2011 07:28 AM Re: MTV 30

Yeah I've been giving this some thought and concluded that it may not have been MTV's fault directly but music generally went from great to shit starting about Aug. 2nd 1981. The best thing about MTV were the little things like the "bumpers" and other brand-related stuff that were wildly creative and fun. There was a real energy to it back when they thought they were changing the world and stuff. The videos back then are campy fun today. I don't think a radio station playing the same lineup of songs would have stood a chance, for better or worse. Beavis & Butthead was subversive genius. 'The Real World' was and is a total POS but an influential one (spawning a million "Pucks" and few "Pedros.") 'Remote Control' was very funny.

Edgy DC Aug 02 2011 07:50 AM Re: MTV 30

Definitely, the coolest thing in the early days was accidental --- that the limited library of available videos forced them to play stuff that nobody else would touch. They were genre-stretching not because they were open minded, but because they were sapped for avaialble Bachman Turner Overdrive videos, so it was, "Holy cats, I guess we'll have to play this crazy shit from Kate Bush or cheap shit from April Wine again." Somebody in the "Pure Pop for Now People" room the other day played "The Salt in My Tears" the other day and it was a revelation. It was a cheap goofy guitar-driven new wave song that would have never been a hit if not for a cheap goofy video on MTV when they had little else to play. It was fun and disposable like a lot of new wave at the time, and for a brief period it was like the early British invasion, where a lot of three minute pieces of candy could come out of nowhere --- much of it forgettable (the Flirts, the Waitresses, the Michael Stanley Band, Donnie Iris, the Romantics) but some of it enduring (U2, the Police, Marshall Crenshaw, the Talking Heads) --- simply because they beat more established acts to a marketplace the industry at large didn't see opening. And then, of course, the industry swallowed it up.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Aug 02 2011 07:59 AM Re: MTV 30

"Salt" is in my heavy rotation these days, love it!

HahnSolo Aug 02 2011 10:13 AM Re: MTV 30

My area of the Bronx wasn't even wired for cable until late 89, early 90. So by the time I got MTV full-time, it just didn't seem all that cool anymore. And that Kurt Loder really rubbed me the wrong way.

themetfairy Aug 02 2011 10:36 AM Re: MTV 30

We had MTV in college, but when we moved to Boston for law school we weren't wired for cable for the first couple of years (Friday Night Videos was our only video option). But eventually cable came to our neighborhood. Not only did we get MTV and Vh1, but we also got V66, which was a fabulous local video tv channel (sadly, after a few years it was bought up by the Home Shopping Network). So I turned on my newly wired TV to check out the videos - MTV - Freeway of Love by Aretha Franklin. Not bad, but I flip the channel. Vh1 - Freeway of Love by Aretha Franklin. Again, not bad, but I wanted to check out the other channel - V66 - Freeway of Love by Aretha Franklin. Sigh. That said, V66 really was a good option. It showed local groups as well as national videos. The only downside was when a video featured on V66 later hit it big, I'd be sick of it by the time MTV started playing it. But despite my first day adventures, having the local channel gave us some nice variety for the rest of our time up in Boston.

soupcan Aug 02 2011 10:39 AM Re: MTV 30

U2 - 'New Year's Day', over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over....

Willets Point Aug 02 2011 10:53 AM Re: MTV 30

I remember "Friday Night Videos". Used to stay up late to watch that. By the time we finally got cable, MTV was kind of fun, but the novelty of music videos wore off quickly.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Aug 02 2011 11:00 AM Re: MTV 30

Was more of a FNV guy myself since my home never had cable. I still have "Rock the Casbah," "Major Tom" "Be Good Johnny" and a few other vids from that show on videotape somewhere.

metirish Aug 02 2011 11:23 AM Re: MTV 30

Before Ireland got MTV we had this, and believe me it was must see TV http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MT-USA

TransMonk Aug 02 2011 11:44 AM Re: MTV 30

We currently have this on one of our local free digital broadcast stations.

dgwphotography Aug 02 2011 11:58 AM Re: MTV 30

Before MTV, we had Don Kirshner's Rock Concert [youtube:lny7pn53]PoxDeTtdICM[/youtube:lny7pn53]

metirish Aug 02 2011 02:11 PM Re: MTV 30

Where are they now you ask? http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainmen ... y_now.html

Frayed Knot Aug 02 2011 02:54 PM Re: MTV 30

dgwphotography wrote: Before MTV, we had Don Kirshner's Rock Concert Plus DKRC, unlike MTV (and despite how chees-ily it may have been produced) at least had real live musicians playing real live music. For me that show answered the questions posed above (intros to new artists, stuff you rarely got on the radio, ability to actually see the artists) much better than MTV.

Edgy DC Aug 02 2011 06:46 PM Re: MTV 30

Plenty of live videos with real live performances in the early years of MTV --- unfortunately, they all seemed to come from three or four concerts: Rush, Garland Jeffries, Benatar, um... Rush, stuff from Concerts for the people of Kampuchea, Billy Squire. Rush too, I think. There were individual live stage promo videos too: Marshall Crenshaw, GoGos, Fleetwood Mac. I think, often enough, an artist had a promo budget for one video, so if their song was a hit, the followup single would have a live performance video. In the latter years, DKRC and/or Midnight Special used taped and mimed performance also. Kirshner's show led pretty logically into MTV.

Willets Point Aug 02 2011 07:29 PM Re: MTV 30

Edgy DC wrote: The odd (and in retrospect, oh, so predictable) is that they launched the channel with an airing (or cabling) of the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star." In so doing, they turned a lament over what they were doing into a celebration of it. And naturally, video only intensified the disadvantage the old and the unattractive would have in the music market. It's a development particularly worth looking at now that the hologram is killing the video star, and folks are passionate fans of "artists" who don't even exist except on hard drives. I'm just throwing this out there, but I recall these videos in high circulation on MTV back in the day. [youtube]B7Z-eUmR2bM&ob=av2e[/youtube] [youtube]h0JvF9vpqx8[/youtube] [youtube]4yf2WP6K1gQ[/youtube] [youtube]te1CVVlaJzA[/youtube]

Edgy DC Aug 02 2011 07:53 PM Re: MTV 30

Well, if your point is that these acts feature ugly people, please not that the point is not so cut and dried as all that. I wrote that the less attractive were disadvantaged, not excluded. I also suggested --- in writing that the phenomenon was "intensified" --- that this was nothing new. I certainly am not meaning suggesting it was born in that era --- but that it hastened the process along toward the marketplace we have now. Not a lot of Phil Collinses here: http://www.mtv.com/music/yearbook/

G-Fafif Aug 02 2011 11:16 PM Re: MTV 30

I found the early VH-1 fascinating in that it played all the videos rejected by MTV in the previous few years: Air Supply, Bertie Higgins, Little River Band, Christopher Cross...it was as if the Yacht Rock thread was given its own channel.